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Hen abandoned nest at 20 days

1K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  theteenygirl 
#1 · (Edited)
Hello everyone, we are new to this forum, and any help would be really appreciated!

We are now 20 days past the start of incubation for our parrotlet hen's second clutch (the first clutch had no hatches). This morning, our hen abandoned the nest and now shows no interest in it. She has spent the rest of the day climbing around and mating with the male. There are six eggs, all of which are fertile, and the older ones showed movement. One of them has done drawdown and may have done the internal pip. We started up our incubator and placed them in around an hour-ish after the hen left them, it has been 4 hrs now and I just turned and checked them. At least a couple of them are still moving.

So we had bought this incubator in case of emergency and that seems to have happened. However, we are totally new at this. We have read many different things, but so far, this is what we are doing: keeping humidity high ~80% for the hatching one, keeping the temp as close to 37.2 as possible, and turning the eggs 1/3 of the way every 4-6 hours, back and forth.

Someone please please please let us know if we are doing things right, and if not, what we need to do differently. Thank you very much!

Eric and Heather
 
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#2 ·
I am not a breeder have not attempted the journey you are embarking on so all I can do is give you my best wishes and welcome you to this site.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Thanks for the encouragement; we'll let you know what happens.

*Update on the result of this situation: So we ended up doing a few things. We wanted to keep our birds interested in the nest, because they are ultimately better at incubating than us. We tried to do this by putting the fake eggs into her nest which we had been originally advised to make as birth control. Around 6 hours later the hen went in and chose three to sit on, rejecting the other two. Once she had settled back in, we swapped the three fake eggs for three real ones from our incubator (two of which showed movement). We were left with three, the oldest of which died due to malposition, and the other two we incubated ourselves for a day, then placed back under her one at a time. Whew, she has been quite dedicated to them since, leaving only to defecate. We'll see if any of these hatch, and if she is willing to raise them. We found a breeder through a local pet store who would be happy to raise them from day one, so we'll keep an eye on her.
 
#4 ·
Wow sounds like you really took care of that situation! I would have no idea, sorry our few breeders on the forum did not catch your post. Good luck with the babies, maybe you can update us with some pictures! :)
 
#5 ·
Thanks Mrs.Jpg, here's a pic of Tsi-tsi, previously Egg#2!

His/her story is quite long, as there were more events, but momma bird is now successfully looking after him. He is chirping loudly, and when I checked on him, he was strong and had a rounded crop. Now, I will give the parrotlet family some space. She is young, and perhaps was also feeling discouraged by the loss of her first clutch. Poor bird, all of this human interference must have been very confusing, but it would have been so sad for her to lose more eggs!
 

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#6 ·
Yay for baby bird! He is a cute little "pterodactyl." Hopefully his mommy just was taking a breather and is now back on track with her mothering, since at that age mom and dad are the best care givers. I don't know anything about breeding except what I hear from breeders, but I know that parrotlets are tiny baby birds and hard to deal with. Good luck, and keep us informed! Hopefully a breeder will appear to give you advice, but they are often busy with their flocks and make infrequent appearances.
 
#7 ·
Thanks Rubydoo252! Ya, we've been told the same thing, so we did everything we could to have the parents look after it. I think I can leave them alone now. Momma has also just become quite defensive which is positive; if the baby is a pterodactyl, then she must be a T-Rex!
 
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